


A Night of Lasts

by sahiya



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, H/C bingo, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-04
Updated: 2012-10-04
Packaged: 2017-11-15 14:51:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/528459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sahiya/pseuds/sahiya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>River had long understood that it was her job to do the things the Doctor couldn’t. (Spoilers for "The Angels Take Manhattan.")</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Night of Lasts

**Author's Note:**

> This is for the "parting ways" square on my [h/c BINGO card](http://sahiya.livejournal.com/678649.html). Thanks to Yamx for the beta!

River had long understood that it was her job to do the things the Doctor couldn’t. She carried a gun because sometimes, very often, in fact, the Doctor needed a gun at his back. She broke her own wrist and hid the damage, because time was already written, and he was too stubborn to admit it. And the night after they lost her parents, she put a few drops of Oellian sleeping draught in the Doctor’s tea, because she knew what needed to be done, and she knew he couldn’t do it.

She tried to get him to go to bed before it knocked him out, but he was having none of it. He stumbled down the stairs to fall asleep beneath the console instead, with his head pillowed on a mess of wiring. River checked that his breathing was deep and even and covered him with a poncho she found stuffed into a chest. Then she sat down on the steps to watch him sleep and allow herself a few moments’ respite. 

She’d meant what she’d said: she couldn’t stay with him forever. But nor could she in all good conscience let him loose on the universe like this. Once, alone in the dark together, he had confessed to her what he’d done at Bowie Base on Mars, what he had come so close to doing, save for the sacrifice of one very brave woman. He was dangerous in this state. There were a number of practicalities that would need seeing to eventually, but her only immediate priority was keeping the Doctor together. 

Once she left him, though - well, she could go places with her vortex manipulator that he couldn’t in the TARDIS. She could make sure there was a bank account set up with seed money for her parents, that they had identities and papers waiting for them. She would do that, eventually. 

But not tonight. Tonight, she had only one thing to take care of while the Doctor slept, and she was going to do it right away. If she waited, she’d lose her nerve. It was her job to do what the Doctor couldn’t, but that didn’t mean she had to enjoy it.

River pushed herself to her feet and climbed the stairs to the console. She entered the coordinates and took them out of the vortex. The ship shuddered quietly through her landing; she wasn’t nearly as loud and wheezy as when the Doctor flew her, but she’d been through the wringer in New York, and it showed. River glanced at the external monitor and saw a small house with a well-tended garden. It was summer, and the climbing roses were blooming all up and down the trellis. 

The back door opened even as River stepped out of the TARDIS, and a gray-haired man emerged. She knew him, but of course, he didn’t know her. Rory and Amy had just never known how to explain her to their parents. She wished now that they had tried. It might have made what she was about to do a little bit easier.

“Hello, Brian,” she said. 

“Hullo. Er.” Brian looked past her, expectantly. When no one else came out of the TARDIS, he glanced back at her with a frown. “I’m afraid we haven’t met. Unless I managed to forget, and I don’t think I would.”

River shook her head. It was not worth trying to explain that she was the trouble-making friend he might remember from Amy and Rory’s childhood. “We’ve never met, though I’ve heard a lot about you. My name is River Song - but I was born Melody Pond.”

Brian blinked. “Pond?”

“Yes, Pond. I’m Rory and Amy’s daughter.”

Brian blinked again, harder this time. “But that would make you . . .”

“Your granddaughter. Yes.”

Brian sat down abruptly on the steps. “But _how_?”

River forced a smile. “It’s a long and complicated story. I’m afraid we only have time for one of those tonight, and I need to tell you a different one.”

Brian looked at her. She could see in him so clearly the person Rory would have become if he had never flown away with the Doctor: very kind, very cautious, but also very perceptive. Too perceptive by half, actually. “Where are Amy and Rory?” he asked. 

“They’re alive,” River said, taking a step toward him. She wanted to twist her fingers together, nervously, but forced herself not to. “They’re together. They’re happy. Hold to that.”

Brian just went on looking at her. “They’re not coming back.”

River shook her head.

Brian looked away at last, to her relief. “Where are they?” he asked, voice trembling ever so slightly.

“New York, 1938. There was an accident,” River said, taking another step forward, “and then there was a paradox and then the timelines became very tangled, and - well, the short of it is that the Doctor can’t go back there to get them. Not without shredding the very fabric of space and time.”

“1938,” Brian said. He slumped forward to put his head in his hands. 

River hesitated, then went to sit beside him. “They’ll be all right. I promise you that,” she said, putting her hand on top of Brian’s. “They lived long, happy lives together.”

He looked at her. “Lived.”

River squeezed his hand. “Yes. I’m sorry.”

Brian sighed. “And the Doctor?” he asked. “Where’s the Doctor?”

River nodded toward the TARDIS. “He’s taking it very hard. He couldn’t tell you himself - well, he might have, in time.” In ten years’ time, perhaps, if that. With time travel, it was all too easy to put off till tomorrow what should be done yesterday. “But I thought you deserved to know now. And I wanted to see you,” she added, smiling a little. “I thought it might be our only chance.”

“Yes,” Brian said, “of course.” He swallowed. 

They both fell silent then. This was, River thought, the last time she would ever come back here. She’d spent some untold number of evenings just like this with Amy and Rory in their own back garden. Even if she saw them again, and she might with time and a lot of care, it wouldn’t be here. It wouldn’t be like this. 

It was a night of lasts. 

“You don’t look like either of them, you know,” Brian said suddenly. 

River smiled. “I know. I did once, a long time ago. Then I changed.”

“We all do, I guess,” Brian sighed. “Thank you, for coming to tell me.”

River squeezed her grandfather’s hand again. “It’s what Amy and Rory would have wanted.” She glanced across the garden at the TARDIS. She wasn’t sure how long the Doctor would stay sleeping, and she didn’t want him to wake and discover where they were. “I can’t stay,” she said. 

Brian followed her gaze. “Do you travel with him, too? Like Amy and Rory?”

“Sometimes,” River said. “But not like Amy and Rory.”

“Will you travel with him now? Look after him?”

River nodded. “Until he can bear to find someone else.” She stood, and he stood with her. “I should be going.”

“Wait.” Brian stopped her with a hand on her wrist - the same wrist she had broken and the Doctor had healed. “Tell him - tell him I’m not angry with him. I told them to go with him, the last time they left. I always knew this might happen. But it was worth it. To them, it was always worth it.”

River nodded. “I’ll tell him.”

“And if you see them again,” Brian said in a rush, “tell them, tell Rory -” His voice cracked. 

River’s throat ached. “I will. I’ll tell him.” She kissed him on the cheek and turned away.

Back in the TARDIS, she took them quietly into the vortex, no muss, no fuss, and then allowed herself to slump against the console. She was quite suddenly exhausted, weary down to her bones. Her wrist ached.

“Professor Song, did you really think I can’t tell when there is Oellian sleeping draught in my tea?”

She turned. The Doctor stood three steps up from the bottom of the staircase, looking freshly scrubbed and a bit damp around the edges. “Sorry, sweetie,” she said with a forced smile. “But there were things that needed to be done.” She was tired, and she didn’t want a fight. But he dared to get angry with her about this, when by all rights he should have been the one giving Brian the news - 

She almost startled when he slid his arms around her waist from behind. He tucked his chin over her shoulder. “Thank you,” he whispered. 

She relaxed, pressing her hands against his. “It was nothing.”

“It wasn’t nothing. Don’t lie to me, River. It wasn’t nothing, and you did it because you knew I couldn’t. Thank you.”

She closed her eyes. “You’re welcome, my love.” She swallowed. “He told me to tell you he doesn’t blame you. He always knew something like this might happen, but it was worth it. To them, it was always worth it.” She drew a deep, tremulous breath. “To me, too, you know. You’re always worth it to me, every bit of it.”

His arms tightened around her. “I wish you’d stay.”

She leaned her head back against his shoulder. “I’ll stay as long as you need me to.”

“Forever, then,” he whispered. “I need you to stay forever.”

She shook her head. “Oh, Doctor. You know I love you, but you need someone to tell you when to stop, and that’s not me. Your hearts are broken now, but someday, they’ll be mended. When that day comes, I’ll have you drop me at home, and you’ll find someone else, someone young and wide-eyed and with a single heart, who can tell you when to stop.”

“But for now,” he said, muffled, into her shoulder. 

“Yes,” she said, and turned in his arms to face him. She pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth. “For now, I’m here.”

He held her tight, and she allowed it for a minute before pulling away to take his hand and lead him up the stairs. It was a night for lasts, but not for this. For now, at least, their story would go on. 

_Fin._


End file.
